SKOWHEGAN – A woman’s cremated remains that were sold at auction will be returned to her family.

Annie Rooney, a former undertaker, realized when she opened a Chinese jar a year after buying it at auction that the ashes inside the container were human remains. Also inside were two photos and two pieces of jewelry.

After the Morning Sentinel published the story this week, Rooney received more than 10 messages on her voice mail from people telling her the remains are those of Dolores Soucie, who died nearly eight years ago.

Soucie’s husband, Randall “Sonny” Soucie of Exeter, planned to meet with Rooney to retrieve the jar and belongings.

Rooney said Soucie was emotional on the phone. He said his wife died at 42 on Dec. 21, 1998. “He was crying, he was so glad I found them,” Rooney said. “He just said, ‘God bless you, woman, God bless you, woman.’ He was so happy,” Rooney said.

Rooney purchased the urn as part of an auction “box lot” – a group of odds and ends that auctioneers typically sell in a box.

She said she stored the ginger jar in her garage and didn’t bother to open it because she figured it was a doorstop.

Rooney, 73, attended the Maine Institute of Anatomy and Embalming in Boston. So she wasn’t taken aback by the discovery.

“But it spooked everybody else,” she said.

Randall Soucie was reticent to discuss the matter, other than to say that the urn had been stored in his garage. “It’s just a mistake, that’s all it was,” Soucie told the newspaper. “I’d just as soon let [the matter] go.”

But it’s not case closed for Dolores Soucie’s children. They want to keep the remains rather than see them go back to Randall Soucie, said Bob Babb of New Gloucester, a relative of Dolores Soucie. “We don’t want him to have it back,” Babb said. “He sold this urn.”